Weekly "Table Talk" story and questions by the author of the Art of Amazement. To subscribe to this blog via email, visit http://jsli.org .

Friday, January 24, 2014

What's your answer to the Jewish Question?

The purpose of this blog is to help your family and friends feel smarter at the Shabbat table. Please print and share.

Someone asked me the other day about how to deal with a bad neighbor.

Ever happen to you? That you had a malicious, vindictive, or otherwise harmful neighbor?

What did you do?

Here's an answer in good rabbinic style, in the form of quesitons.

First question, see if anyone can guess what famous person said this:

"Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can
doubt the fact that they are, beyond all question, the most formidable
and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world....

We owe to the Jews…a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely
separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious
possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and
learning put together. On that system and by that faith there has been
built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing
civilization."

Do you want a hint?

The same guy who said, “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Same guy who said, "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."